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Kaede
"I was born to kill humans." - Kaede, in the final anime episode. The central character of the Elfen Lied series, she is the protagonist and anti-hero of the story. The so-called 'Queen' Diclonius, Kaede (also known as Lucy and Nyu) was both ruthlessly tormented and a sadistic tormentor, driven by both the cruelty she found so often in life but also by the knowledge that love and acceptance was possible. Her great love was Kouta, a boy she met when they were children and again when they were young adults. Elfen Lied is in essence defined by her love for and relationship with Kouta, marked by some joy but also by deepest tragedy. As a Diclonius, Kaede possessed power rivaled by few others of her kind, and control over her vectors, mostly invisible telekinetic 'arms', virtually second to none. She was also capable of spreading the Diclonius mutation to the children born to people she infected, with the idea of replacing normal Humans with her kind. Biography Birth Kaede's mother was a Human capable of giving birth to fully-powered and reproductive-capable Diclonius (as opposed to the sterile Silpelit children), and was apparently the true origin of the virus that spawned them. Captured by Chief Kakuzawa, Kaede's mother was held, studied and forced to bear a son by him, commiting sucide after this. Kaede knew nothing of this, believing both parents had abandoned her. In fact, only her father had, while her mother never stopped searching for her, prior to her capture by Kakuzawa. It remains unclear if Chief Kakuzawa knew of Kaede's existence before others did, so the timeframe of the conception and birth of Kaede's half-brother is also uncertain. She was taken in by an orphanage, where she was avoided by the staff, commonly bullied and referred to as an "Oxen" (due to her horns) and told by the other children that she should live outside. In an odd way, Kaede understood this as the other children being miserable and needing to make others miserable as well. Diclonius instinct awakened Kaede found an abandoned puppy in the woods around the orphanage, whom she thought of as her first friend. Feeding the puppy on breadcrumbs left the pup starving, so she felt forced to give most of her dinner to it. During this time, it was later revealed that young Kaede while holding her pup sometimes listened to the singing of young Nozomi, who fled to those same mountains to hide her singing from her family. The two never truly met at this time. When a boy named Tomoo threw milk all over her bag, a young girl saw, and shouted for a teacher. Thinking of her as a new friend, Kaede told the girl about the puppy. However, although promising to keep it a secret, the girl told the boys about Kaede's relationship with the puppy, and the bullies took it from the woods. Grabbing hold of Kaede, the boys brought in the puppy and began killing it by repeatedly smashing a vase on it. The girl came in, admitting to telling them about the puppy. Despite her apologies and protests that she hadn't known the puppy would be hurt, Kaede spotted her smiling behind her supposedly covered eyes. Feeling betrayed and enraged, she released her vectors for the first time, killing all of her tormentors. She then buried the dog, apologizing for not being able to protect it, and decided to go on the run. During the nights, Kaede went with her Diclonius instincts and slaughtered entire families to stay in their houses. The murders became more and more publicised and she found it harder to stay at a house for very long. At odd moments, the horror of what she was doing would strike her, but her pain and need reasserted itself in short order. Kouta While she stood at the grave, a young boy arrived and noticed her horns. Thinking he would just hurt her more, she prepared to kill him. However, he, surprisingly, found them cool and immediately wanted to befriend her. Kaede thought that he was trying to deceive her, and tried to leave, but Kouta persisted, promising that he would be there the same time tomorrow. In a sad touch of irony, Kouta's father did not let him out, because of the homicides happening in Kamakura caused by Kaede. Even knowing that Kouta would never come, she hoped against hope and went to the place of the meeting, staying there until night, regretting what she saw as her foolishness in the rain. Kouta, loyal to his promise, snuck out during the night, and went to meet Kaede. When arrived, he gave her a hat, so she could hide her horns, which seemed to distress her. They agree to play together the next day. Kouta only came three days later, because of his father´s fear of having a serial killer in the neighborhood. But since it was the last day of vacation, and since there had been no more murders in the past three days, he let him go out. Because it was the last day he could stay with her, Kouta decided to take Kaede to the zoo and spend all day with her. Her fascination with animals she had never had the chance to know of (such as Elephants and Giraffes) surprised Kouta, and he took delight in her joy from this. They enjoyed themselves all day and this created a strong bond between them. It was the best day of Kaede's life, but it hurt her that this was to be the last day she could see Kouta. When she learned he was going to a nearby festival, she begged to go with him, but he said that he promised to go with his cousin. At nightfall, as they were returning on the bus, the voice inside her head said to her that Kouta must be going to the festival with another girl, and said she would better off killing him now, so as to avoid suffering later. Then she found herself choking Kouta, and stopped, terrified. She exacted a promise from him to kill her if someday she ended up killing lots of people. When they had ret urned, a jealous fearful Kaede asked Kouta whether his cousin was a boy or a girl. Not wishing to hurt her feelings, Kouta lied and said his cousin was a boy. She nonetheless went to the festival, only to feel betrayed by yet another friend by finding out that his cousin, Yuka was actually a girl. Then she mentally saw Kouta saying that he could never be a friends with a weirdo like her, and that he had only been nice to her because he adores strange animals. As she broke down further, she saw her orphanage tormentors as horrific undead creatures, also saying there was no place for someone like her. The voice of her Diclonii instincts took the mental image of herself but with a cold and psychotic expression, saying that she couldn´t coexist with Humans. The voice proposed to Kaede to join her and she would make a place for them to live. In a rage, she began killing several people at the festival. This was reported later as a bomb attack, though Kouta's little sister Kanae, who had the extraordinary gift to see her vectors, ran away and told her family (and presumably, authorities) that people were being killed by a horned girl. Kouta immediately thought of Kaede, but he didn´t believe in his sister's story. With summer and their visit over, Kouta and his family boarded the train for Hokkaido and said goodbye to Yuka and her mother. Kaede watched with contempt as Kouta comforted a tearful Yuka. Kanae kept insisting to Kouta that her story was true, even as Kaede emerged into their car on the moving train. Kouta angrily denied Kanae's account that Kaede could be responsible and slapped her, reducing his little sister to tears when he said he hated her. Kaede then ripped Kanae in half and beheaded her and Kouta's father, telling the horrified Kouta that Yuka was next, but still wanting to be with him. In grief and rage, Kouta began assaulting her, telling her to stop killing. Kaede realized that, far from making Kouta love only her, she had done something unforgivable and perhaps pushed him away forever. While she ran away, she privately vowed to live for no other reason than to one day return and apologize to Kouta. Capture Kaede laid low and hid for the next five years, moving about only at night. The majority of her victims would suffer heart attacks after her vectors damaged their blood vessels. As these murders and the instance of Silpelit births multiplied geometrically over these years in Kamakura, Kaede's birthplace and one-time home, Kurama and Kakuzawa pieced this information together with information with the Festival and orphanage murders caused by Kaede. When a picture of Kaede, who was listed as missing and presumed kidnapped during the orphanage killings, came into their hands, her horns revealed her identity and a direct pursuit was begun. Kaede befriended a young girl named Aiko Takada who liked to draw. Aiko too, was lonely, dealing with an abusive father and hoping to reunite with the mother who abandoned her. When Aiko accidentally killed her enraged father, the two were accused of murder and ran away from the scene, hoping that the girl could see her mother, who was having an art show at the nearby museum, again. After hiding in the museum, Kurama found them two and ordered the forces with him to open fire. Aiko jumped in the way of the gunfire to save Kaede's life. In exchange for a promise of immediate medical attention for Aiko, Kaede surrendered to Kurama. After being imprisoned within the Diclonius Research Institute (National Research Institute on Human EvolutionInnermost Feelings ~ Herzenswärme, page 185) Kaede was informed that Aiko had died from her wounds. Kurama asserted that she could have lived had they simply given up, and that Humans only wanted the Diclonius race to co-exist with them. Kaede refutes this, stating that nothing Humans did indicated wanting co-existence. As vengeance for Aiko's death, Kaede promised Kurama that, if she were ever to escape, she would kill everyone who mattered to him. Escape During her three year imprisonment, Kaede was encased in a metal cage within a containment chamber, and the name "Lucy" was commonly used by the researchers, again in reference to a fossil find. It was also possibly a reference to Lucifer, as she and the other Diclonius were often regarded as monsters and demons. She occasionally repeated her vow to Kurama, amending it to say she would leave him alive to suffer. From time to time, a guard or scientist would stray too close to her containment chamber, and she would kill them. One day, a security guard dropped his mobile phone within her strike zone, and Lucy used it to cut his arm off, and in his resulting panic, killed him. The man possessed a key to the cell, which she retrieved and unlocked. The conditions for this opportunity were later revealed to be part of a plan by Professor Kakuzawa. Now free, she made her escape, slaughtering tens if not dozens of security guards. Eventually she found Kurama and a group of guards, fully armed and standing within a perimeter not to her advantage. Kurama's secretary Kisaragi clumsily entered the room and was taken hostage by Lucy. Lucy then pulled her head from her body, and used her body as a shield against gunfire. Combined with her vectors, this turned back the gunfire. Killing off the guards, she left Kurama alone as part of her promise. She made her way to the exit, and prepared to jump off a cliffside to leave the island. Kurama had a guard use a .50 caliber rifle to fire at the back of Lucy's head, which in theory would kill her instantly. However, she turned her head towards the sharpshooter just before it was fired. This resulted in the bullet hitting her restraining helmet instead. The force of the projectile knocked her unconscious, and into the sea. Nyu and life in Maple House Lucy fell into the ocean and drifted onto shore. She ended up in the coast beach of Kamakura, the place were she did her first killings and were she met Kouta. By sheer coincidence, she happened to have been found by Kouta (unable to remember her and the killings) and Yuka, who were walking along the same beach. Because of the blow on the head she had suffered, she temporarily lost her memory and developed a childlike and ignorant personality, only able to make the sound Nyu , because of that Kouta and Yuka decided to call her by the only word she knew. Instead of taking her to the police, they took her to Kouta´s new house - Maple House. At the start Nyu knew little of hygiene and other forms of restraint but she began to learn slowly over time. On occasion, the Lucy personality would re-emerge, as it did during her brutal battles with Bando and Nana, and when she was held by Professor Kakuzawa. When in Lucy persona, she discovers that she is living with Kouta, her childhood love, at the beginning she wants get away from him and occasionally disappears (always returning because of the Nyu persona dominance), because of her guilt of killing his family, but when she realizes her other personality and Kouta´s lost memory, she wants to live in peace as Nyu with the other residents, including Nozomi as well as Nana. The Nyu and Kaede sides of her psyche kept Lucy from ever harming Kouta and also Yuka, whose loss she knew Kouta would never forgive. Lucy re-emerged once again during her and Nana's battle with Mariko, and marked the first time she lost her horns. For a time, this seemed to cause the Nyu personality to not only predominate, but to mature into that of to a young woman who still had many of Nyu's mannerisms. Nana, at first hostile to Nyu for the loss of her limbs in battle, eventually accepted that Nyu and Lucy were two different people. During another battle with Bando and the Unknown Man, Mayu, who had witnessed the first battle between Lucy and Nana, regained her memories of Nana's dismemberment, for which Lucy, albeit reluctantly, prepared to kill her. Bando stopped this at the cost of mortal wounds, again shooting off her horns. Confronted for the first time with the idea of Lucy's existence, Nyu was eventually persuaded to return to Kaede House, where a joyful dinner was interrupted by an assault team led by Nousou and the Agent and backed up by three clones that were bred from Mariko's DNA. With her friends harassed and wounded and Kouta shot, Nyu regrew her horns instantly and gained the ability to use vectors without becoming Lucy. Her actions during this battle had the side effect of restoring Kouta's lost memories of how his family died and the fact that Kaede as Lucy had killed them. Angry and grief-stricken, she wiped out nearly the entire assault force, but was taken down by the Agent and a dying Mariko clone. From there she was taken back to the island facility and kept in an underground grotto, and at last confronted Chief Kakuzawa. The End This confrontation was the beginning of the end for Kaede's journey. Chief Kakuzawa revealed that he too was of Diclonius descent, and that all his efforts to seemingly harm the Diclonii were in fact part of a master plan to ensure their dominance and replacement of non-horned Humans. He also introduced Kaede to her half-brother, his own son by Kaede's mother and to his mind, her mate as they recreated the Diclonius race, also ensuring the new race was of his line. He also revealed that continual use of her powers was slowly destroying her body. Kaede killed Kakuzawa, her half-brother and seemingly the mutated Anna Kakuzawa as well. Speaking to Chief Kakuzawa's corpse, she hatefully rejected his plans, saying that not only were Diclonius Human after all, but that he and his family had mistaken a minor genetic mutation (horns on the heads of many of their clan) for being true Diclonii. To her half-brother's corpse, she apologized, saying that even though he had done nothing wrong, their line must end, and would with what she saw as her now-inevitable death. Evading armed forces from various nations, some equipped with vector-based weapons, she made for the mainland, determined to see Kouta again before she died. Allied forces, Kurama and Nana, and a recovering Kouta himself made for Kaede's position. Kaede at last apologized to Kouta for killing his family, also explaining that an inner voice, that of her own DNA, drove her to the horrible things she did. Breaking her heart, Kouta made it explicitly clear that he would never forgive Kaede for murdering Kanae and their father. He also firmly rejected her explanation of a DNA voice, saying all people dealt with such a thing. But he did care for her as Nyu enough to offer to let her continue to stay with them at Kaede House, provided she never killed again. Attacks by Kurama and armed soldiers made keeping this vow impossible, and also began to dissolve her body from overuse of her powers. Faced with a choice of destroying the world that had caused her so much pain and saving Kouta, whose wounds had been worsened unto death, she turned all her remaining energy into healing him. As her body began to literally fall apart before his eyes, Kouta was given a gun and urged to fulfil his childhood promise to kill her before the DNA persona emerged and tried to again destroy the world. The Kaede and Nyu personalities held this other one back, but Kouta found that he could not kill his old friend, no matter how she wronged him. Before fading, Kaede urged him to return each year to where they first met, and one day, she would be waiting for him. The most vicious personality now had full control, but was in such incredible pain that it placed the gun in Kouta's hands, and in a mix of mercy and vengeance, then Kouta killed the girl he knew as Nyu. Even without their Queen and with an anti-Diclonius birth vaccine being distributed in the midst of a total worldwide birth ban, the remaining Diclonius were years in being taken down, and killed many Humans before it was all done. In the intervening years, Kouta returned to the spot where he met Nyu as a child on the anniversary of that day. In one such instance, he arrived in the company of his daughter Nyuu, whom he named after his fallen friend, and who looked much like her presumed mother, Yuka. Speaking of playing there as a child, Kouta found with little Nyuu's help, a note inside a bottle in the area around the large stone near the grave of Kaede's puppy. It was a heartfelt note from Kaede, who expressed her love and desire from early on to marry him. It was also the first time he learned Kaede's true name. Little Nyuu told her father that she had been playing with twin girls in that area, and that one of them was named Kaede. The twins, not fully seen but looking a lot like Kaede as a child, smiled at Kouta and told him they had been waiting for their special friend, which brought Kouta to tears of joy. It is strongly implied that the two good personas in Kaede have been reincarnated into these young girls. If one counts Lucy and Nyu as separate from Kaede, then perhaps even little Nyuu herself is part of this rebirth. Personality Kaede suffers from Multiple personality disorder, having at least three different personalities. This disorder began in her childhood. Kaede Personality Her original personality (Kaede) was that of a depressed, distrustful, withdrawn and frustrated kid. She was discriminated against by others, because of her horns. Thinking that she was abandoned by her parents, she was also avoided and judged by staff of the orphanage, bullied and treated contemptuously by other children, all this because of her horns. She didn´t understand why such discrimination happened, and so she also suffered from self-hatred from having horns. To some extent she understood that the other kids were miserable and needed to make others miserable too, targeting especially those already more miserable than they. When gaining intimacy with someone as Kouta and Aiko, she is shown to be sweet, kind and shy. Lucy Personality After witnessing her dog's murder at the hands of the orphanage bullies, she began to develop a deep hatred of Humans, killing whole families just to use their house, without regret or guilt. Shortly after this, she began to hear a voice in her head, supposedly the voice of her DNA. The voice of her Diclonius instincts had the mental image of herself, with the only difference having a cold and sadistic expression. The voice told her that she couldn´t coexist in a world with humans, and then said: "Join me. Then I will make to you a place to live in.". From that point on Kaede began to listen to her instincts, killing some Humans by way of inducing heart attacks, and spreading her genes to Male Humans, who would have Diclonius children who would in turn kill and infect more. Her Diclonii instincts began to overpower her, leading her to develop a sadistic, psycopathic and blood thirsty personality. This personality is often designated as Lucy, a name given to her in the Diclonii Research Institute, and never used by her or anyone who befriended her. While unclear, it's possible that the Lucy Personality is in fact a combination of the Kaede Personality and the DNA Voice Personality, since she apparently had traits of both. Nyu Personality During her escape from the Diclonius Research Institute, a sniper shot a bullet from a .50 caliber rifle on Lucy´s helmet, that was partially slowed by the helmet she wore and her vectors, causing her to fall off a cliffside into the sea. Lucy´s personality fell unconscious and by the next morning Kaede woke up on the beach at Kamakura without any memories and with a childlike and infantile personality. The only sound she knew was Nyu, which was how Kouta and Yuka decided to name her. Despite the ignorance of Nyu, she had a basic sense of good and evil, much like a young child. She was a kind, sweet, innocent and naive girl, with an intense sexual curiosity that often made life awkward for her housemates. As the time passed in the Kaede House, Nyu slowly began to learn the basic morals and norms of society. When she lost her horns in the battle with Mariko, Nyu's persona overdominated, and remained for just over half a year. During this time Nyu matured greatly, learning how to speak properly and in complete sentences, how to cook, clean, and show at least some restraint on her sexual curiosity. A variant on this personality emerged when Kaede House was attacked, as Nyu was finally able to use vectors like Lucy, was brutal towards her attackers, but still deeply caring of her house mates, especially Kouta. It could be said that the personality she finished the series with was a variable-percentage merger between Lucy and Nyu, as elements of both surfaced. For example, when facing Chief Kakuzawa for the last time, her nudity became an issue for her, covering what she could from his view. This is in marked contrast to the uncaring attitude the pure Lucy persona had about such matters, likely stemming from contempt for Humans as lower creatures, and also to the child-like free spirit Nyu mostly was, happily climbing in the bath with and groping to excess any friend who had her attention. Upon her death, these two personalities each seemed to have their own spirit, both of which loved Kouta and her friends. DNA Voice It cannot be confirmed from evidence in the series whether or not this personality, supposedly the voice of Lucy's Diclonius DNA, really existed or was merely the embodiment of Kaede's intense alienation and pain. Kaede first truly heard it after her rage and grief over the killing of her puppy at the orphanage, and heard it even more as she feared Kouta had betrayed her. It was a compelling voice that Kaede often gave into, yet she stated that it never actually controlled her, and merely guided her. Nana seemed to hear this voice on at least two occasions on which she felt she had no place in the world, and Mariko clone Barbara said that she heard a voice urging her to kill all Humans. Yet both Nana and Barbara suffered cruelly at the Institute, and the validity of these instances is in question. The idea that it may have been more of a split personality than an actual echo of Diclonius DNA is given strength by the fact that it finally did briefly take over Kaede's body as it was close to death. Kouta for his part dismissed this voice as a variant on something all people have to struggle with, but best evidence also contains no information from the anime or manga that dismisses this possibility either, leaving it an open question and one of the series' greatest unresolved mysteries. The personality of Kaede/Lucy/Nyu's DNA Voice was that of a cold, sadistic, hate-twisted, manipulative, compulsive/obessive and truly psychopatic killer without guilt or remorse. She had a strong wish to destroy all of Humanity and replace it with Diclonii, in which she would possibly rule the world, since she is in essence a Queen Diclonius. She also had no qualms in trying to convince Kaede/Lucy/Nyu that all Humans were vile creatures that truly needed to die, and was even willing to kill Kouta and Co. at any cost, regardless of their compassion towards her. Near the end of the manga series when she manages to gain full control of her then mortally wounded body however, and Kouta is urged by Kaede and Nyu to shoot and kill her with a near-by gun, he backs down at the last moment, unwilling to kill his long-time friend no matter how much she wronged him in the past, even though Kaede's and Nyu's illusions are now fading away, unable to protect him anymore, and the DNA Voice is now in full control. Despite this sudden freedom to finally kill him and his friends/family as she pleases, the DNA Voice, seemingly shocked/surprised and perhaps even moved by Kouta's love for her, instead ceases all attack's, only to use a single vector to pick up the gun for Kouta to shoot her, which he finally does, thus putting her out of misery. This suggest that despite all the horrible deeds she comitted in the series, whether directly or indirectly, she was still capable of compassion, even if just a ''tiny ''bit. It is also possible that, having never been in control and therefore fully 'alive' before, this persona had no tolerance for physical pain, let alone the intense agony Kaede's body must have undergone as it melted. It's unknown if she was ever reborn at the end of the manga series. Trivia *Kaede means 'Maple' in English; Note this name is never used except at the very end of the manga; she is known largely as Nyu to her friends, and as Lucy to her pursuers. It is also the name of the central location in the series, Maple House. *Lucy is the name given to an Australopithecus fossil find of immense importance, and likely played a role in Kakuzawa's renaming of Kaede, though this is never confirmed in-series. *The word Nyu is actually very similar to how the word cow is spelled in Japan. Since the bullies at the orphange called her an oxen this may be why she spoke that word. It also has an 'ecchi' connotation as slang for breasts, which as Nyu frequently groped, even in her 'mature' persona. *The anime's end is left for the viewer to decided whether Kaede or Nyu is the one at the door. Many fans believe that Kaede killed her Lucy persona so Kouta could live with Nyu. But it could be either since she can swap personalities when she falls unconscious. The name Kaede never appears in the anime, where in the English dub Kaede House is called Maple Inn. *Kaede appears taller than Nyu when standing. *"Nyu" or "Nyaa" is the sound a cat makes in Japan. *Neither anime nor manga ever makes clear the extent to which Kaede (or other Diclonii) were naturally prone to kill Humans and how much of it was reciprocated hate and self-defense. *Kaede is the only left-handed character in the series. Gallery Lucy escape.jpg|Lucy during her escape Nyu-chan.jpg DSC01234.JPG|Enraged at the shooting of Kouta Lucy PVC.JPG|A very rare Lucy miniature Nyu PVC.JPG|A very rare Nyu miniature (different interchangeable head from Lucy) DSC01287.JPG|Nyu manga color shot Lucylastmessage.JPG|The message that proved her love for Kouta DSC01440.JPG|Young Kaede, with her puppy, listening to the singing of young Nozomi Category:Diclonius Category:Main characters